Saturday, 1 November 2014

G20 - How is it funded?

My Facebook page has been filled with all sorts of news feeds which indirectly relate to this G20 meeting in Brisvegas in a couple of weeks. It is all very exciting and I love this excuse to 'tart' the old place up a bit. The street art project PILLARS PROJECT , the light festival, the hotel upgrades, well it all just makes Brissie more exciting.

I read that President Obama is planning on sleeping on his plane parked up at the airport which has agreed that it will make sure that Airforce One will never be more than 30 minutes away from takeoff. There is some big flash kitchen on board so meals will be a skate and I guess he is used to sleeping in his bed there. Security should be easier too I guess cos they can have people surround the plane 24 hours a day. Bit of a shame though that no Brissie hotel will profit from his stay.

Or maybe NOT. I wonder how all this accommodation and travel and meals and security is being paid for. 4000 delegates all have to sleep somewhere and eat their 3 meals and snacks and have to be safe and sound, and the 3000 media folk have to be similarly sorted.

So I googled 'How is the G20 funded' and I was underwhelmed with the response. There's lots of interesting info online, about who and where and what, but not too much about HOW. It sure does not seem very transparent .

The host country, that's us Aussies this time, get to invite some friends or strategic people and I wondered if these folk just pop along carrying a small gift and eat and drink and be merry as would happen if you invited 'em to a little social gathering. I mean I guess that those funny little invitations used to call a whole year 4 class to fun and birthday games might be a bit naff and I imagine the G20. loot bags would have to be a bit flasher than a brown paper baggie filled with wrapped sweeties.

All this must just be costing a fortune, and I am not at all sure what the benefits are supposed to be. I reckon if there was anything urgent to discuss then a few minutes on SKYPE would probably see it sorted. And whilst I still don't know where the money is coming from, it is certainly being spent, and I can't help but feel that it could all be better spent, but I guess arriving at concensus about the feel - good project to be funded would be about impossible to reach - far easier to decide to meet up for a jolly in a safe sort of a place where the weather is probably gonna be good.

So 4000 people are gonna meet up at varying tiers of meetings and chat and enjoy some lively company and good food. Decision making seems as unlikely as the fat fairy coming in and transforming me into a size 10, Steve and I can often not agree on what to have for dinner, and there's only 2 of us and mostly we don't care. Yes there is an agenda to be followed at least loosely and then 300 media types will report back to the rest of the world.

I like the idea of my home town being the backdrop for news world wide and I hope that we will feel proud of her, but I can't stop the cynical shouting in my brain which wonders what it is really all about.